Gun Control And The Southern Border

Over at Townhall, columnist Justin Haskins makes an interesting point regarding liberal anti-gun crusaders. He posits that if these crusaders were serious about gun control, they’d also favor something almost every single one of them is dead set against: Securing the southern border with Mexico.

The debate is often cast by those on the left as one between those who don’t care about murder, death, and destruction and those who want to stop it tomorrow with “common sense” gun-control laws. But upon closer examination, it’s clear liberals know the kind of gun control they are constantly advocating for is nothing more than a way to score political points with their donors, because if they truly wanted to enact strict limits on legal gun ownership, they would also have to shut down America’s massive land borders—a position the left has been staunchly opposed to for decades.

Regardless of whether you support enhancing border security at the U.S.-Mexico border, one thing is certain: In its current state, it’s relatively easy to transport illegal weapons in and out of Mexico. According to a 2016 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office,70,000 guns recovered from crime scenes in Mexico from 2009 to 2014 originated in the United States, including numerous “high caliber rifles,” which are “the preferred weapon used by drug trafficking organizations.”

Although most of these weapons are believed to be brought from the United States into Mexico, if liberals were to successfully ban and destroy most guns (a task that is likely impossible at any point in the near future), the numerous organized crime groups trafficking in illicit drugs in northern Mexico would have an entirely new black market to take advantage of. And if it’s possible to transport hundreds of thousands of guns and millions of pounds of drugs in and out of the United States, how difficult would it be to transport millions of guns?

Haskins makes an excellent point, but all that assumes these anti-gun crusaders actually cared about reducing gun violence in this country. They don’t and they never have.

This is obvious because there are absolutely no efforts put forth by these zealots toward anything but the guns. They don’t seek to remedy the socioeconomic causes of most violence in this country, for example. The Brady Campaign and Everytown for Gun Safety do nothing to combat gang violence, which is a large part of our current violent crime statistics. They don’t do anything to combat any other source of violence either.

Neither do they clamor for the government to enforce existing gun laws, such as the numerous cases of convicted felons trying to buy guns through gun stores. This happens every day in this country, is already illegal, and yet there’s no great demand from these groups for the government to enforce its laws, only to create new ones.

With that in mind, there’s no reason to believe they actually support doing anything to reduce gun violence in this country. They only want to take away the guns owned by law-abiding citizens.